Pour Another, I've Been Here All Week
by Nehszriah
Summary: From an anonymous prompt on tumblr: while twelve is drunk, he's telling clara something he'll not be able to deny next morning. (basically something like this: Yes, I'm drunk. And you're beautiful. And tomorrow morning, I'll be sober but you'll still be beautiful.)


A/N: I've seen that there is quite a few "character gets drunk things happen" fics that have been going around, and it makes me wonder about the general welfare about the people writing/requesting all of them. While I have obviously filled the prompt and am not against drinking as a whole, please do remember that there is nothing silly or funny about drunkenness and if you do imbibe, know your limits/make sure it is in a safe environment.

Story takes place pre-Face the Raven; let us assume that Time Lords/Gallifreyans are like Mirkwood Elves and it either takes a lot to get them drunk and/or they only get drunk when they want to, since I'm pretty sure the Doctor has established that he cannot get drunk in canon (though I could be wrong, since I remember that coming out of Susan in a Virgin Missing Adventure); very angsty and most definitely not a cute or funny version of the Doctor getting drunk.

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Pour Another, I've Been Here All Week

When Clara got home that Wednesday, she found that the TARDIS was already parked in her sitting room. There was no Doctor in her sitting room though, or in the kitchen, or the bathroom, or the bedroom. He simply wasn't anywhere, which was a bit unnerving.

"Do you know where he is?" she asked the TARDIS. For a split second she felt incredibly stupid; how would the TARDIS tell her she needed to go down to the sweet shop or the park? Was there a tickertape feed next to the phone? Would the ship even tell her?

Instead, to her surprise, the TARDIS door opened on its own. Clara cautiously walked in, half-expecting some sort of ambush. There wasn't, however—the only sounds were the ones of the ship sitting in stasis.

"Doctor…? Doctor, are you there?" Clara asked. She spun around slowly, attempting to see where he was perched, whether it was for sulking or whatever, though he was nowhere in there either. The archway to the corridors lit up, which was more helpful than she had expected. She walked over and placed a hand on the wall, taking a cursory glance.

"Thank you," she told the TARDIS. The ship in return lit a path for her, illuminating the twists and turns she had to take. Eventually, the soft glow settled on a proper doorway, one that she had never seen before. That part wasn't a surprise—the TARDIS had innumerable rooms with countless variations and the Doctor hadn't even yet seen them all—but what was the surprise was what was inside.

Pressing her way in, Clara found herself inside a bar. It seemed to be furnished like the kind she would see in hotels, with plush carpet, private booths, and low ambient lighting. There was only one other person in there: a slender figure hunched over his drink, spindly legs hanging off the barstool awkwardly. The TARDIS's holographic interface was playing host behind the long, oaken counter, having taken the visage of an elderly man with white hair and a beard. It smiled kindly at Clara, nodding in the Doctor's direction before dissipating. She took it as her cue to sit down next to the Doctor, looking him over silently. He was a wreck: all disheveled with wild hair, with over a week's worth of scruff and clothes that smelled to be about as old. His eyes were red-rimmed and blood-shot, staring at something far, far away within his memory. This wasn't the Doctor… or at least, it wasn't the Doctor that she knew and cared for.

"What's the matter?" Clara asked. She gently placed a hand on his shoulder, letting him know she was there.

"Stop," he mumbled sourly. She took her hand away and stared at him. "Wilf was bad enough and now you have to bring her into it?"

' _He thinks I'm the interface_ ,' she realized. Thinking quickly, Clara decided that this was the perfect way to get a straight answer out of him.

"It might help you sort through your troubles," she said.

"I'd rather not," he replied. The Doctor slammed back the remainder of his drink and scowled at the air ahead of him.

"Don't think of voicing your troubles as weakness," she assured him. "Vocalizing often helps the situation."

"How?!" he snapped. The Doctor stood up and began pacing the room, his arms flapping about as he spoke. "She's _dead_ , okay?! I popped in at Local Knowledge's a bit in the future and he said she's _dead_. _I killed her!_ I know I did! How can I live with myself knowing I got her killed somehow?!"

"It could have been natural," Clara said, attempting to keep her voice level. "She could have grown old—a short time for you is a long time for her."

"My hearts are telling me otherwise," he growled. As he spun around to continue pacing, he nearly fell over, stumbling into a table instead. "I can't think that—there are so many things I wanted to do! I wanted to say!" He held himself steady with the back of a chair as he slumped to the floor, whimpering, "Clara… my Clara…"

The woman in question didn't quite know what to do or say. This was completely unlike him; the Doctor didn't sob drunkenly on the floor. Hell, the man didn't even _get_ drunk. He wasn't a stranger to alcohol, but she had personally watched him outdrink an entire space-Oktoberfest once without even the slightest hint of beer on his breath. He had babbled on later about differing metabolic rates between their species, and how there were few drinks in the universe with the engineering behind them to actually affect him properly, and that he'd know if he'd consumed one of those on accident. Standing up, Clara walked over towards the Doctor and crouched down next to him, sitting on the floor in order to stroke his unkempt hair.

"You know how to find her properly—find her alive," she crooned, taking his head into her lap. "Practice on me; what would you tell her?" He laid there, curled up, half-sobbing into what he thought was an advanced hologram. Clara figured that the ship must have brought itself to her flat, as this was the shell of a man who was completely broken. She knew she had to die eventually, as all things do, but this was no way to mourn, prematurely or not. He sucked in an uneasy breath before going on.

"I love you," he murmured shakily. "I have traveled with dozens of people and beings over my lifetime, and somehow you have made an impression on me like very few have before. Humans are dangerous to travel with, since their lives are so short, so fleeting, but you, Clara… if I could find a way to keep you at my side, I would."

"You've loved other humans in the past, so what makes me different?" She was hoping he didn't realize she was asking as her, not as the interface, and she lucked out.

"I've said ' _love'_ , but I rarely mean it as something this deep and lasting," he replied. "No matter which human and Time Lord are together, it's always a short fling on the latter's part. I've truly loved few, and romantically… even less." He brought his body in closer together, attempting to wrap up into himself. "There has never been a human love I have known like yours. I would destroy the universe to keep us together."

"No you wouldn't," she frowned. "You left others because without the universe, where would you go?"

"That doesn't matter—time and space will fix itself," he said darkly. "If anyone tries to take you away from me, there will be hell to pay."

Closing her eyes, Clara bit her lip and tried not to cry. "…and why's that?"

"You rescued me, gave me this body, and although I turned into what I had become, you still loved me," he said. "My last face was your boyfriend, a flirty fling for the both of us, but this… this face would like to be your husband if he can ever figure out a way to admit it."

Part of Clara wasn't surprised in the slightest; the way they exchanged looks was more than what friends resigned themselves to, not to mention the slow build of light touches here and there. Something in his voice made her wary, however, with all the weight and gravitas it carried. She lightly scratched him behind the ear, right in the place she knew was soothing for him.

"…but you're married," she said. "What if one day you run across River?"

"I've been separated from her for over a thousand years—she'd understand," he exhaled. "It's a bit awkward to figure out how ' _til death do you part_ ' works when the first time one meets the other they die and the rest is all out-of-order."

"I never said your relationships were all easy ones," she mentioned. Clara continued to pet his hair, keeping the Doctor calm despite his drunken state. "What would you think if I said that Clara was waiting for you to finally admit these things? That she ran away with you on Christmas because she wants to be by your side, that if there were a way to have you in her Earth life on a permanent basis as well as in her TARDIS life, she would have you in an instant?"

"She doesn't think that way—she can't possibly think that way."

"Of course I do, you idiot." She bent down and kissed his temple before patting his cheek gently. "Now let's get you fixed up, yeah? Can't go showing off planets while looking like some sort of space-hobo."

"No such thing," he mumbled, not registering what had just happened. He allowed Clara to help him stand, afterwards wobbling into her. "Why aren't my legs working?"

"You had too much to drink."

"Is that why I've got this…" He wiggled his fingers in front of his forehead. "…thing?"

"It's called ' _the worst hangover in the universe'_ , and yes," she said, attempting not to giggle. This, at least, was something to laugh about. For being such an incredibly ancient, powerful being, he did not know how to take care of himself in such situations. She grabbed his arm and had him lean on her as she led him out of the bar, hoping the TARDIS would keep cooperating when it came to placing rooms in convenient places. Sure enough, she found her bedroom with ease. She would have preferred his, but at that point she had no room to be choosy.

"What are we doing?" he wondered.

"Setting you straight," she said plainly. Clara brought him to the bathroom and was able to get him in the shower, stripping him down to nothingness before turning the water on. He yielded to her, let her take over, not entirely sure he should do anything to either help or hinder. She scrubbed him down and rinsed him off, afterwards finding a pair of pajamas for him to change into. Well, they looked like the things he had taken to wearing normally as of late, but pajamas were still pajamas. Eventually he was sitting on the edge of the tub, hair towel-dried and body covered in a t-shirt and trousers, looking up at her confused.

"What now?"

"You get to sleep it off."

"I don't need to sleep—you know that better than anyone," he complained. As much as he whined, the Doctor did not resist as Clara pulled him up and led him out the door hand-in-hand. Over to the bed they went, with her pushing him down onto the mattress so that she could cover him up with the blankets. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because you need it," she replied. "Close your eyes and do equations if it makes you feel better."

He said something under his breath, having begun to drift off as soon as his head hit the pillow. A few minutes later and he was fast asleep. His carer sighed in relief, knowing that now he was at least not dangerously sulking elsewhere over what they both knew to be inevitable. Considering the Doctor never realized that he doesn't look the same age as her, Clara wasn't concerned about his visit to Rigsy's and her lack of being there. Rigsy could have been a very old man for all the Doctor knew, or by that point Clara was living inside the TARDIS, effectively dead to everyone on Earth.

There were plenty of reasons as to why she wasn't around in that time, and the last thing she was going to do was dwell on them.


End file.
